I've read that in three months in early 2018 more than £50 million was lost by British people in pension scams - yes, in 3 months!

Here's another scam aiming to get our personal and credit card details...
`TV licence email scam: More than 5,000 complaints in three months' LINK
`A TV licence email scam has led to more than 5,000 complaints over the past three months. Cyber crime monitor Action Fraud said fake TV licence emails regarding payment issues had been sent out to try to collect bank details. The number of reports has increased in each of the past three months, with 1,805 complaints in December alone. Action Fraud told the BBC the scam was "particularly nasty as it looks so convincing". The emails use headlines such as "correct your licensing information" and "your TV licence expires today" in an attempt to convince people to click on the link in the email...'

'The accident of which you were innocent' scammers called again yesterday. Sheffield land line, and authentic looking phone number. This time I managed to get through to a human - I think my current bad cold fooled the voice recognition software.

He was an Asian sounding gent who said he was called Anderson. I asked for his phone number, and company name. He gave both, but they were false. I was just revving up for the 'coup de grace' when for some reason he put the phone down on me. Very rude.

Action Fraud told the BBC the scam was "particularly nasty as it looks so convincing". The emails use headlines such as "correct your licensing information" and "your TV licence expires today" in an attempt to convince people to click on the link in the email...'

I got that one a couple of weeks ago. We are on direct debit so guess what?

I got my first financial spam email this morning for a long time. It purported to be from the Halifax and said there was news about my account..... Strange thing is I haven't got one so marked as junk immediately without opening. The crooks must be getting desperate, I wonder how many of those mails they sent out....... No wonder servers are clogged!

Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net

"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!

Daniel (Lord) Finkelstein relates how his father, living alone, was targeted recently by fraudsters. The man phoned him claiming to be from the police and sounding genuine. He said a fraudster was targeting his account and so a policemen would have to visit him and collect his bank details. When father said he didn't want that the `policeman' became aggressive and threatened him with various legal spoofs to make him even more worried. He also said `We know you live alone. Father told them that his son was there with him. They said `We know there's no-one with you' (and that was correct ) and then `We're coming round now'. By that stage father was, not surprisingly, in a panic. Fortunately he had the good sense to rush out his back door and to his neighbours' house who took him in and called the police who also notified the bank. Nothing happened to his account and of course the criminals weren't traceable; but it left father living in fear of phone calls. There are some nasty people about.

We have caller ID on one phone, but not in the kitchen where we tend to be or in tbe bedroom. The other morning the phone woke us in the bedroom, I grabbed it fearing something was wrong with one of the family and it was a spam caller about my internet AGH!

Call barring works on the line rather than the individual phone and is a much better bet if you have more than one receiver. We have that on our Talk Talk service. You can bar from the phone with a key press or go online to your account and manage and add to the list from there. It has a friendly number list as well for calls that you are prepared to accept, works very well.

We have the caller ID display service on our triple cordless phones provided free with our Plusnet broadband.
Stanley, we have the triple version of this `BT 4600 Big Button Advanced Call Blocker Cordless Home Phone
with Answer Machine' Single version
There is a Twin version if you need it: Twin

If your Talk Talk package includes telephone, the call barring facility is already available. You just need to go into your account online and enable it. You only need the # key on your phone to add a number to the barred list.

I can see I will have to do a bit of research! That big button phone looks interesting Tiz, I shall consider it.
Had a look. Does the call block key only work for BT accounts?
I'm not ignoring what you said Ian, it's just that my phone is over 20 years old and it's probably time I upgraded.....

Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net

"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!

We don't use call blocking, only caller display. I think these services usually have to be from your service provider. Ours is Plusnet. I think Ian is saying Talk Talk would provide the service and I expect any phone would accept it.

Yes it's part of the phone package if you use Talk Talk. You just have to enable the feature in your account, a tick box job. You can add numbers to the blocked list directly from your phone, don't need any dedicated buttons just the # key. You can manage the list online if you wish. We have a couple of basic BT wireless handsets, I think they were round the £20 mark, no buttons on the base units just charging docks, they work fine. Voicemail is built into the account as well so you don't need a specific receiver to do that either.

Received this spam/scam yesterday. The scammers are now targeting EU nationals who work here. Immigration And Nationality Services Ltd is a genuine business helping such people with their documents etc. The OPEN CREDIT NOTE is a button if you view the message in HTML and it links to an unrelated and obviously risky web address. The email is from an address at the domain victoriandetectives.com which has obviously been hacked. Basware is also genuine. It's no danger to me but unfortunately there will be EU nationals in the UK who won't notice the odd From address and just click on the dodgy link and get scammed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Credit Note from Immigration And Nationality Services Ltd
Immigration And Nationality Services Ltd sent you a credit note on 30/01/19
Customer Number 8816553
Credit note number T05-00077106C
Due Date 12/02/19
Gross total -3,004.18 GBP
Click the button below to view the credit note.
OPEN CREDIT NOTE
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